


remain, remains, remaining

by baehj2915



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: 400 Years Later, Gen, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Post-Canon, so that means everyone but keyleth and scanman
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-29
Updated: 2017-11-29
Packaged: 2019-02-08 07:06:38
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,759
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12859362
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/baehj2915/pseuds/baehj2915
Summary: Based on this premise from tumblr:Do love the idea of Scanlan and Keyleth needing to be a two-person army 400 years after the end of the story to combat some threat. Scanlan with his salt and pepper hair, Keyleth looking nearly the same, and their friends are all gone. S’kind of kind an war-buddy reunion; both will probably be among the most powerful beings on the planet, even if they feel incomplete.





	remain, remains, remaining

**Author's Note:**

> hey i'm sad now! 
> 
> i've been meaning to write something about keyleth and scanlan for a long time now so this was pretty fulfilling. this isn't nearly as in depth as it could be, considering just how long they'll probably be the final two and how they've always been a bit distant. so i'm hoping i can inspire a few people to do more with elderly 400yo scanlan and middle aged 400yo keyleth 
> 
> hope you like
> 
> ~*~

After the battle, after people disperse to their own mourning, Keyleth stands alone to breathe for a second. In 400 years she’s seen the rise of 20 or so generations of new Heroes. And except for a few like her– long-lived, hardy, and lucky… or cursed–their inevitable fall as well. Being the remaining one is what she does now. 

 

A young druid fell not twenty feet from her a few minutes earlier. He was twenty-some years old. Younger than Vax had been. 

 

There’s a long moment where she thinks about resurrecting the boy, but in the end, she grows flowers around him and lets the earth take him. 

 

People in the encampment around her are bringing out food and ale and laughing too hard because they’re fortunate to be laughing. It’s the desperate happiness she’s seen countless times before. She leaves them to their celebrations because she’s not desperate or particularly happy.

 

Keyleth finds her way to the little old man singing under the window of the infirmary, where she expected him to be. She can see the shimmer of magic in the sound when she looks for it. He doesn’t stop when she sits near him. 

 

“Why don’t you just go inside? Maybe the healers could use an extra hand.” 

 

He hums another bar, plucking out the end of a tune on a mandolin. 

 

“My healing spells are weak.” Which is his usual excuse, despite the fact he just finished a healing spell a second ago. And despite a little meant a lot when you were close to death. 

 

“I’m sure they could still use a hand.”

 

“Then why don’t you go and help them out.” 

 

They stare at each other for a while. Well, Keyleth looks at him and assumes Scanlan is staring back. His eyes are still a fathomless metallic silver and his forehead still glowing with the eye of The Knowing Mistress. 

 

Even after hundreds of years Scanlan still comes at everything from a side angle, zig-zagging. Even after hundreds of years Keyleth still finds it difficult to know when he’ll react with a laugh and a nod, or an uncomfortable deflection that means he’ll coincidentally be too busy to visit with her for a few months. 

 

Keyleth could go help the healers and probably will at some point. But she said it for his benefit. 

 

It’s been almost twenty years now, but this is what he does since Pike died. Scanlan has always healed in battle, even though he’s always said it’s not his strong suit. But since she died, Keyleth has seen him go out of his way to do more healing, off the battlefield and spending more time seeking out people in need. But he avoids clerics and ignores anyone who tries to include him in temple work. 

 

They’ll want to talk about her. Scanlan talks about everything but. 

 

“Do you still have any energy left?” Keyleth says, changing the subject. 

 

He shrugs and plays a few notes on the mandolin. “So-so.” 

 

So Keyleth turns into a giant eagle, waiting for him to follow her lead. He sighs, maybe rolls silvered eyes, and stands up with a crack of his knee. It’s hard to remember sometimes he’s approaching an age, even in his long life. His hair is is mostly gray, but still dark. Unlike other older gnomes Keyleth has known, Scanlan still keeps his face clean shaven and his hair coiffed and oiled. But he needs glasses to read and write, and he cant write or play for too long anymore before his hand seizes. His dominant hand curls into a gnarled fist when he’s not paying attention and his knuckles are always swollen. He’s looked less old than he was for most of his life, but it seems like it’s catching up with him since Pike passed away.

 

Keyleth worries when she notices. What makes her feel even worse is that she’s not all that worried about Scanlan. These last decades whenever Scanlan creaks with age or throws himself in front of a dragon, she starts to feel the dwindling tethers on her snap and loosen. 

 

When Scanlan dies, she won’t have anyone who knows… 

 

She doesn’t like to think about that. It makes her think about after Pike… It was a bad time. 

 

She doesn’t like to think about that either. 

 

Scanlan straightens out with a wince and in a whirl of feathers and skin a strange, large bird… type thing stands in his place. It’s not a bird Keyleth has ever seen before, which annoys her. One of his weird, ancient beasts he likes to startle people with. It’s leathery, ugly, and dangerous looking, reddish with brown feathers, and a nasty sharp beak. 

 

She rolls her eyes and tries to tell him he could’ve just been an eagle too, but as usual forgets she can’t speak Common while polymorphed and just screeches at him for a second. 

 

They fly off together, circling the encampment around the battlefield and the town, looking for any literal for figurative fires that needed putting out. Aside from using their talons to lift a tree that had fallen on a house, the townspeople seem to be handling the aftermath ably. Any discussion of rehabilitation or needed supplies won’t be happening in the council until the next day anyway. 

 

Keyleth flies up to a low ridge on rocky outcrop surrounding a field. And after a moment Scanlan lands beside her. 

 

When they transform back and sit next to each other on the ledge, Scanlan looks up at her with silver eyes. “Thanks for setting all those undead on fire. I froze.” 

 

She had noticed, but wouldn’t call it freezing. Scanlan hadn’t been too far away from her and what he’d been doing was looking around after yelling “Turn them!” over his shoulder. 

 

Keyleth thinks the mind takes shortcuts a lot, especially minds as old as theirs, especially in a frantic battle. She’s certain he was looking for Pike, if only because Keyleth had done the same thing for a second when she saw the undead horde. 

 

“It happens,” she says with a shrug. 

 

Scanlan scoffs. “Not over a bunch of worthless walking corpses, it doesn’t.” 

 

“You know, I think the mind doesn’t work logically, especially in the heat of battle. It takes lots of, you know, shortcuts–”

 

Scanlan sighs deeply. “I was looking for Pike. You know it. I know it. It’s _okay_.

“It _is_ okay,” Keyleth nods. 

“It shouldn’t be. It’s been eighteen years. I still look at her empty side of the bed most mornings and think she must be in the garden.” 

  

Just as much as she envies that Pike and Scanlan were together for so long, she doesn’t envy what he knows now. Living with a spouse for over 300 years, longer than most living beings could possibly imagine having a partner, and having to start all over without them. 

Scanlan is so still, like he hardly ever is, and his voice is weak, like it hardly ever is. The third eye of Ioun brightens for a brief moment and dissipates and silver in his eyes melts back to brown. All she can see is echoes of the weeks after Pike’s funeral. 

And then echoes of the times before and before and before. 

Keyleth’s stomach drops in a queasy lump, like it always has in this kind of moment, a moment she’s experienced a lot, but it’s not as bad as it used to be. She used to be destroyed, for days, feeling like she was going to cry so hard she would vomit. With Vax, and then Percy, and then her father–the grief, watching the grief on other people’s faces felt like another organ in her body. She doesn’t like that it’s so much easier now; it makes her feel inhuman. But if she had to feel the way it felt the first time for the rest of her days, she would never wake up again. 

She doesn’t know what to say. She didn’t know what to say eighteen years ago, or a hundred and fifty years ago, and years before that and before and before. 

She never knows what to say. It may feel easier for her to see her way through to the next decade or the next century, but she never knows what to say. 

Her hand uneasily reaches out for his. 

They’d gotten closer over the years, as the slow winnowing of their family and all the people that could ever relate to them was wont to do, but it didn’t change the nature of their friendship. There had never been a natural ease to their companionship. They weren’t the sort to hug or touch except for major achievements or near death experiences. 

Handholding in particular had never been her thing, had tended to make her more nervous than relaxed, but Scanlan and Pike used to all the time. 

He doesn’t say anything right away, and wipes tears from his face with one hand, and takes Keyleth’s hand with the other. And they sit for a moment, watching the sun set in pink and orange and purple. 

In less than a minute, Scanlan pulls her hand in and covers it with his other hand. It’s fatherly and doting and she almost longs for them to argue over some obscure magical theory. 

“You know,” he says in a soft, affectionate voice, “one day, you’re going to be a really good leader. Really make a name for yourself.” 

She tries to hold on to her disapproval, but her shoulders shake with laughter. “You’re such an asshole, Scanlan.” 

“Well, you know me, it’s the ego or the emotions. There’s not enough room in here for the two of them.” He winks, his roguishness marred a little by his red-rimmed eyes. 

“How many hundreds of years will it take for you to learn you don’t need to ruin every nice moment? That you can just let it happen?” 

“Eh,” he shrugs, still holding her hand, “you’ll miss me when I’m gone.” 

“Yes,” Keyleth says without hesitation. “I really will.” 

The sadness slips easily back onto his face because it never really left. As usual he was just pretending. “I’ll miss you too, Kiki. But I’m looking forward to reading one hell of a book about you when I’m gone. So you better not stop when I do. Promise?” 

Keyleth squeezed his wrinkled hand one last time, smiling because she already knew he could have a nice moment if he wanted one. 

“I promise, Scanlan. I’ll keep going.” 

**Author's Note:**

> ~*~
> 
> yo, i'm jabletown.tumblr.com if you want to see me struggle to finish my other fic demands 
> 
> *coughi'mgonnagetbacktorejoiceeventuallycough*
> 
> llap


End file.
